


till the sun's seen through my eyes

by min8_8



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - No Exy, Angst, Call Me By Your Name AU, Eventual Romance, Fluff, M/M, also andrew wears a black bandana instead of arm bands!!, ive never written shit like this before so excuse my errors :(, lol not rly but i based this a bit on CMBYN, uhhh what else lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/min8_8/pseuds/min8_8
Summary: One summer, Neil Josten and his mother let three Americans (aka Nicky, Aaron and Andrew) rent rooms in their villa in Gran Canaria. Andrew hates going out and so does Neil!





	1. Poolside Convo

Neil told himself that the cousins were just going to be here until the end of the month. Four weeks and a few days. Until then he had to sleep in the guest room.

The little room was not so bad. It offered him solace and silence. The single, tall window made his summer mornings almost unbearable, but Mary had made the maids buy Neil a tall burgundy curtain yesterday. And today, although it was just as sunny as every summer day, Neil actually _loved_ holing up in the room, with just his sketchbook and pencils and watercolors.

He had not noticed the time until one of the maids knocked on his door.

“Señor Neil? _El almuerzo esta listo._ ” _Lunch is ready_. His stomach growled in response. He had lost himself in his sketches for the entire morning, breakfast forgotten, lunch almost skipped.

“ _Gracias, Jimena._ I’ll be down in a sec!”

He hurriedly closed his sketchbook and put it under his pillow.

His mom was already in the dining room, all dolled up.

“You’ve got somewhere to go, Mom?”

“ _El cine_ with my friends, dear. Come eat. You missed your breakfast.” She tousled his unkempt auburn tangle of a hair as he sat down next to her. “The cousins have already eaten. They’ve just left to go to the beach. Oh, I think the other twin didn’t come, or did he, Jimena?”

Jimena shook her head no. “That one does not seem to love the outdoors, Señorita.”

“Well, it seems like you’re not so special, Neil,” his mother joked.

He simply shrugged and ate his lunch quietly. The cousins- Nicky, Aaron, and Andrew- came here a few days ago to rent three separate rooms. There were only two spare rooms for tourists, and they never had more than two tourists rent their villa before, but Mary said yes anyway, and convinced Neil to move to the small guest room for the meantime. The cousins were upcoming juniors in some prestige college in America, vacationing in Maspalomas for the entire month of July before going to Morocco to meet with somebody. Who was it again? He forgot. Probably the tallest one’s friend? Edward? Erik? Edmund? He couldn’t care less anyway.

All he cared about was the fast progress of time. Soon it would be the end of July, and they would be gone, and he would get his room back. And he would then not have to feel so wary of new eyes looking at him.

He reminded himself that his father and his men could no longer hurt him and his mom. No. Not from his shithole of a cell back in Baltimore, where Neil hoped his father would thoroughly rot to death.  It had been two years since his dad and his gang of thugs were sent to jail for domestic abuse. Since then, he and his mother moved to Madrid, then to Gran Canaria, in Maspalomas, where everything was different from their environment in Baltimore. They had started over. Mary started to teach again, in an international school where she had also enrolled Neil for him to finish his last two years in high school.

Neil had spent all his life with his mother, because all they had were each other. And now that he was done with high school and Mary had explicitly allowed him to go to college anywhere he pleased, he was so confused whether to stay or not.

Meeting new people still scared him. He remembered being beat up in front of his father’s friends. His past was sick and twisted and it was not even his fault. Not to mention his father made him seem like the bad guy in front of clueless and powerless strangers. _My son? A runaway!_ A slap across his cheek. _A thief!_ A whip against his laid-out palms. _Worthless! Disrespectful!_ The butt of a cigar against his cheek. _A monster!_ Two burly men holding his arms and his father submerging his head in a bucket of ice. Some days, his father’s thugs would give Neil and Mary electric shocks, while Nathan Wesninski watched them wail in pain with a bottle of bourbon in hand. All because they tried to get away from him. All because Neil fought back. All because he wanted to protect himself and his mom from the hands of the Butcher.

After lunch, he went back upstairs to get his art supplies. He wanted to spend an hour or two by the pool before the cousins came back. They were always swimming- except Andrew, who was always sulking away inside his room.

He was barefoot, and felt peace seep into his anxious self as he dipped his legs onto the cyan water. This was his daily fix. Poolside peace and some fresh air. Everyday he tried to do this without getting interrupted. That was why he was always careful.

But today, maybe he wasn’t careful enough to be alone.

“Are you purposefully giving Aaron a crooked nose?”

Neil almost jumped at the voice. He looked up. It was Andrew, sort of looking over his shoulder but not really. In a swift second, the other guy was already sitting about a meter apart from him, legs dipped in water too.

“Do you talk?” Andrew asked, which annoyed Neil. Not only did he disturb Neil in his daily relaxation routine, but he was being insulting too.

“Do you ever mind your own business?” Neil fired back, which earned only the slightest hint of a smile on that… _stagnant_ , expressionless face of Andrew’s.

“Most of the time, yeah.”

They were quiet for a while, staring at the still poolwater in front of them. Neil then transferred his gaze to the open page of his sketchbook.

This disaster of an image was the byproduct of his favorite sketching exercise. Drawing strangers with slightly more comical features.

But now this favorite habit of his was just pure embarrassing. It just hit him.

He felt like he needed to say _something_. He looked at the drawing again. Minutes ago he had felt so great about it. A fucking masterpiece, he even thought. In it, Aaron was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, some shorts and his usual irritated look. But there was a stick up his butt area.

And his nose looked broken as hell.

“I was bored, okay? And your brother had that constant look in his face. I couldn’t… stop myself.” He regretted the words as soon as he let them into the open. Jesus, was this guy going to give him a beating for such a stupid joke? Would he drown him? Would he-

“He does look like he has a stick up his ass 24/7. Keen eyes, Neil.”

“Um, thanks?”

“So, you draw everyone?”

“Nope,” he lied.

“Hmm.”

“Actually, yes. I draw people a lot. People from around here. Beach-goers. People on TV. Everyone. Except myself.” He was quite surprised by how chatty he was getting. Maybe because this stranger sounded so… disinterested and bored?

Andrew turned to look at him. Neil kept his eyes on the water. He was terrible at eye contact. Still, without looking at the blonde, he felt him inspect his face. He was aware Andrew could clearly see a small scar on his cheek from where Andrew was sitting. And he felt his skin crawl.

“Why do you not draw yourself?” Andrew asked, turning his eyes back on the water. Neil mentally thanked him for stopping the staring.

“Just because.” He wanted to stop being _asked_ and go shoot a question himself. This time, it was his turn to look at Andrew. “Can I ask you a question?”  The other guy only nodded briefly.

He looked exactly like his twin brother, but more… dead-looking? There was also that bandana around his head that Neil had never seen him take off. Sure, people wore bandanas all the time, but for Andrew’s case, Neil was so curious that he almost asked him a question about it.

“If you were given a chance to choose anywhere in the world to study, where would you go?”

Andrew considered the question before answering. “I guess anywhere but the US? Honestly, the school system in America is shit.”

Neil agreed with that. “Yeah.”

“You planning on studying in a particular city?”

“I plan on studying here in Gran Canaria. Just… here. Even though my mom wants me to leave the nest and discover the world and all that.”

“So why don’t you leave? If I were you, I would not stay.”

“I’m just… afraid, I guess.  What if…” What if his father somehow found a way out of jail and would do all he could to get back at them? What if he left and _something_ _bad_ happened  to her? He would not forgive himself. He could never.

“Neil.” Andrew’s cool voice brought him back to the present. “Neil, you okay?”

He took a deep breath as if he had just plunged himself in the water. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t overthink it, Neil. It’s okay. Decisions are not easily made. You still have time until you have to have a final choice, yes?”

Neil nodded. He felt grateful for Andrew’s words. He had not expected him to be kind. But he couldn’t say how grateful he was. “I still have until August.”

They remained like that for a while, just watching the noon turn to afternoon. They did not speak or move from their spots until they heard the sound of Jimena’s bell.

“Boys! I made some _bienmesabe_!”

Andrew said, “I don’t know what that is but I hope it’s dessert.”

Neil grinned. “Yeah, it is.”


	2. I Want You, Not WikiHow

Neil watched the smoke unfurl from Andrew’s lips. He and Andrew were sitting cross-legged facing each other in the villa’s wooden patio. He intently watched the curious way his eyes were half-closed in pleasure. The problem was, Neil was supposed to draw him smoke, but he couldn’t quite lift his pen across the page. And he wasn’t aware until Andrew spoke.

“Problem?”

Neil felt like he had just woken up from a trance. “I’ve never studied people while they smoke before, like, from up-close.”

“And?”

“You’re really good at it. I dunno, I just… it’s like wanting to eat fast food after seeing someone on TV eat some.”

“I hate fast food.”

“Well… my point is, watching you smoke makes me want to smoke, too.”

This had become their daily routine. After lunch, they’d hang out by the pool and Neil would sketch and Andrew would smoke. Some days they got bored with the pool and went inside to watch some bad TV show ironically. Some days they would laze around the patio, listening to Jimena hum songs from the kitchen. Some days, Neil took Andrew with him to run errands for Mary.

Just to humor his mother, Neil would suggest to Andrew that they went outside every now and then. They’d bike to the _Playa_ to observe beach-goers and to the boardwalk, where they’d pretend to be clueless tourists and would randomly ask people directions to places that didn’t even exist. It was Neil’s old habit, and now he was making Andrew do it with him. There was something about purposefully annoying people that gave him some semblance of joy, although he and Andrew managed to keep a straight face while and after doing their sick gimmick. Maybe it was the same for Andrew.

Now, he was risking revisiting childhood memories just for one cig. His mother had _loved_ smoking back in Baltimore. She had called it her “coping mechanism.” Neil had wanted one, too- a _coping mechanism_ to forget the throbbing pain in the fresh bruises that Nathan always gave him. He had politely asked Mary to teach him how to smoke. Instead, he was handed a sketchbook and some art supplies.

Andrew studied him. “Have you tried smoking before?”

“Yeah, when I was a kid. Mom smoked a lot back in, um, America. I stole some cigs from her and tried to smoke one. It was a bad idea. I hated it. But maybe it would be different now?”

Andrew handed him his cig. “It’s all yours. Go try.”

Neil put it between his lips, closing his eyes.

“Take in a small amount of smoke first, so you won’t cough it back,” Andrew instructed.

Neil concentrated, inhaling only a bit of smoke, just like Andrew had told him.  For a solid five seconds, he was _actually_ smoking, feeling proud of himself. _Did he look as good as Andrew while he was doing it? Was he cool now?_ He felt the smallest spark of what might have been excitement in his chest- it might have been just the smoke tickling his lungs, but it made him giddy anyway. However, it turned to horrible coughing when _some noise_ from inside the house startled the living daylights out of him.

_“OYE CARIÑO! SOLO PIENSO EN TI, WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING UNTIL I GO BACK TO SLEEP, HOW I WISH YOU WERE MINE, I THINK OF YOU ALL THE TIME…”_

Nicky and Aaron emerged into the wooden patio, both shirtless and sporting swimming trunks, towels hanging around their shoulders. Nicky was singing with that… _horrifyingly loud_ voice of his. Next to him, Aaron looked ten times more irritated than the last time he had seen him.

“Shut up, Nicky. You don’t live here,” Aaron reprimanded his cousin.

“Oh, come on! The owner’s not here. And the maids went to town to buy something.”

Aaron pointed to Neil. “He’s here, though. And he might tell his mom you’re being so fucking loud and we might get kicked out of here.”

Nicky ignored him as soon as he noticed Neil sitting with Andrew. “Oh hi there, Neeeeeeil!” He gave Neil a wink, which made the latter turn red.

So far, Neil’s interactions with them went like this: Nicky would give him a compliment (cute, good-looking, handsome) and he would stutter a quick thanks and bow his head down, afraid he’d blush, and Aaron would snort or say something snide about disloyalty, which Neil barely understood.

Nicky looked from him to Andrew then back to him. “Can I join your two-man cult? Aaron sucks. I want new buddies.”

Andrew snatched his cigarette from Neil’s fingers and put it back between his lips. He blew smoke in front of Nicky’s face as the latter went to sit down with them. “Sorry, you’re not welcome.”

Aaron walked to the pool. “You heard him, Nicky. Not welcome.”

Nicky didn’t budge. “Fuck you, you whiney bitch!” He shouted to Aaron. Then he returned his attention to the two. “So, Andrew. What miracles have you been performing in this nice wonderful summer day _with this gorgeous face right here?”_

Neil wondered why Nicky thought he was cute. This guy seriously needed glasses. Neil thought that he was nowhere near gorgeous. He freaked people out with his fucked up scars and his aura that screamed “I have a _natural disconnect_ from the world, now scram!”

“He was trying to draw me while I smoked but he wanted to learn how to smoke instead. So I was teaching him.”

“Ooooohh. Nice moves, I like that.”

“Shut up or I’ll tell Erik you go out every night drinking and doing who-knows-what.”

Nicky pouted dramatically. “Fine, Andrew, okay, okay.” He touched his cousin’s arm gently.

Neil saw Andrew’s bored look turn to something else. Anger? Irritation? He couldn’t tell, but Nicky’s touch had made Andrew tense, and before he knew it the blonde was standing up.

“WikiHow can teach you how to smoke, Neil.”

Neil tried to go after him, but Nicky stopped him. He didn’t want WikiHow. He wanted Andrew.

“Give him space, Neil. He’s not a very… touch-y person. Guess I should've been careful,” Nicky said with a nervous laugh.

For the entire afternoon, Neil watched Nicky swim and joke around Aaron. If he was being his usual self now, he would have bolted to his own room too. But today was different. What would happen if he had followed Andrew to wherever he decided to sulk? What, try to comfort him? He barely knew how to comfort himself. Best to stay put and act like he was not bothered.

When Aaron got tired he lay on the ledge above the pool and fell asleep.

“He snores so loud,” Neil commented, surprised that he was feeling comfortable enough to say that. Nicky wasn’t so bad. Maybe he was loud, but he was… _fun_? Did Neil see fun in people now?

“Oh, it’s the heterosexuality, Neil. It’s wearing him down. Last night, he met a sweet American girl named Katelyn, and he spent about a hundred years ogling around the Corralejo topic.”

“Corralejo topic?”

“You see, he was trying to ask her out, specifically to Corralejo. We’re going there tomorrow, we’ll be meeting a few friends who are currently on vacation there. Andrew’ll be coming, too. We’ve already agreed upon it. Two days and one night in Corralejo, then we’d be back here before you know it!”

“Oh,” was all Neil said. He felt… disappointed. What did he expect? That Andrew was going to stay here and not go to some _social gathering_?

The song in Nicky’s playlist had changed, and Nicky sang along to it, not noticing the disappointment in his face. “WOOOOAHHH, I WANT TO KNOW…. WHERE I CAN GO… WHEN YOU’RE NOT AROUND, AND I’M FEELING DOWN…”

_So won't you stay for a moment_

_So I can say_

_I, I need you so_

_‘Cause right now you know, that nothing is new_

_And I'm obsessed with you…_

The song shot through him like a bullet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs referenced in this chapter:
> 
> "lo que siento" by cuco (ples listen to his music he's amazin!! B)  
> "sunflower" by rex orange county
> 
> thanks again for reading hehe this means a lot to me, bros <3


	3. Red Swimming Trunks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> neil loses self-control

It had been a long time since Neil had a nosebleed.

He was now seated in the kitchen, chatting the minutes away with his mother and Jimena. He was also holding up an icebag to his nose. Nosebleeds happened to him all the time. This was nothing to worry about.

“You should’ve woken up earlier, Señor Neil. The cousins loved the _sancocho_. I could also tell that the little _chico hermoso_ with the bandana and his twin brother loved the _barraquito_ because their glasses were so clean!” Jimena was beaming, proud of the “goodbye breakfast” that Mary had asked her to make for their guests.

“It’s not like they’re not coming back, Mom,” Neil told his mom.

“I know, dear. But it’s nice to throw something grand for our guests, yes? Besides, it makes Jimena very happy. I also missed having homemade _barraquito_! Don’t worry, Jimena can make a glass for you right now. Do you want that, _mi chiquito_?”

Neil shook his head no. “I want to take a nap. May I be excused?”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a lie. He was not sleepy at all. Instead of going straight to the guest room- _his­_ room for the meantime- he walked towards Andrew’s room.

He turned the knob. It wasn’t locked.

The room looked empty, just as empty as it had been before they came here.

He flopped onto the bed. Smelled the pillows. _Lilacs._ Once, he and Andrew had gone to the store to buy a few things for Jimena. Andrew had picked a bottle of shampoo for himself. _Lilacslilacslilacs_.

_This is the exact place where Andrew had slept last night._

_His body was here, right here, and now my body’s here too._

Neil thought he was going insane.

Last night, he had almost bumped to Andrew in the hallway. “Hey, you. Help me pack?” he had said.

And so he did. They barely spoke to each other, just kept their eyes and hands on the task. Then, Neil had made a joke about his “bland” wardrobe.

“Says the guy who wears plain t-shirts and jorts.”

“What’s wrong with jorts? I think they’re comfortable.” He had also blurted out the question he’d been meaning to ask. “Why do you wear a bandana? I’ve never seen you without it.”

 Andrew had looked at him with his dead-fish eyes. He had stared at him back. Finally, the blonde spoke. “It’s a longass story. I’ll tell you when we come back.”

“Fine,” he had said.

Neil got up. Looked around. There was nothing here that belonged to Andrew. He went to the bathroom.

There, by the sink, was a pair of crimson swimming trunks. He had seen Andrew wear it many times. Neil had always thought it was a little too big for Andrew. But he realized that he loved it on him anyway.

He took his shorts off and slipped on Andrew’s red swimming trunks. As if that wasn’t enough, he took his shirt off, too, and saw his scarred body in the mirror. He grimaced. Although he was a pretty short guy, through the years he had grown quite taller, and had never buffed up. He was skin and bones. And ugly scars.

He sat inside the bathtub.

“Do I wanna be like you? Why is that? You’re just… a guy. With cool hair. And a cool bandana. And, alright, alright, a cool face, too,” he said to an imaginary Andrew.

Blood fell on his naked chest. His nose was bleeding again. He had left the icebag in the kitchen and he didn’t want to get it right then.

He wanted to do _something._ But what? He felt like he had a huge gaping hole inside him. Fuck that. He felt like the hole itself, hungry to be filled. His fingers started to shake and his breaths were becoming fast and uneven, which frightened him, frustrated him. He looked up at the ceiling to stop his nosebleed, then closed his eyes.

There was really only one thing- one person- that he could think about and before he could stop himself he was already slipping his hand onto his- _Andrew’s_ \- swimming trunks.

Touching himself was never his go-to habit. Hell, in his entire life he had probably jacked off only thrice. And in those few times that he did it, his only purpose was to calm himself down or to distract himself from body pain.

But now as he was doing it, he felt like he was born to do it as if he was given fingers to give himself the heady, fiery pleasure that he was experiencing right now.

And it was different now because he had a face to do it to.

Slipping back on his own clothes, he noticed how bright red his face had become in the mirror. Shame brewed in his guts like poison so he washed away traces of himself from Andrew’s trunks in the sink.

 _Hunger will drive the wolf out of the woods_ , he thought to himself. 


	4. Have my kumquats.... and my secrets, too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> andrew's pov  
> (wow im rly Good at writin' summaries huh)

Andrew never wanted to agree to Nicky’s proposition to vacation with the Foxhood in the Canary Islands. The Foxhood, which he tried best not to associate with, was a co-ed fraternity-like association of students in his university led by a guy named Kevin Day, the biggest history junkie he’d ever met in his life.

During his freshman year, he had joined the Foxhood only because Nicky and Aaron did. He never trusted the Foxhood’s members (called the “Foxes”) except for Renee Walker, who he had been friends with since his rehab days. He had always been certain that the only people he could call family were Nicky and Aaron, and he had felt responsible to protect them from anyone he didn’t trust.

But it turned out there was nothing dangerous about the Foxes. They were just people who were obsessed with _achieving_ in their studies and in life.

Such people never struck as “good company” for Andrew.

“But Andrew, Erik will be arriving in Morocco for his new job by the end of July. If we went with the Foxes, not only are we gonna get a bulk discount in the plane ticket fare, but we’re gonna have a chance to visit Erik before he starts working!” Nicky had pleaded.

“No, _you’re_ going to have a chance to see Erik. I don’t care about him, Nicky. You can go. Take my grumpy doppelganger with you. You’re both grown men, and you can take care of yourselves.”

“But-“

“Don’t.”

“If you go, I’m never ever gonna annoy you to join any Foxhood gathering again. And I promise that. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Tell Kevin Ass Day to kick me out of his nunnery and I’d go.”

Nicky considered this with added drama. Wiping away imaginary tears, he had said, “But what about all the memories we had shared toge- Fine. I’ll do just that.”

Before finals week, he had been officially “kicked out” of the bunch. He didn’t know how Nicky did it, but maybe Kevin Day simply didn’t see any reason to keep him in his circle of nerds.

It was also a good thing to know that Nicky was allowed to not really hang out with the group the entire getaway. “I think Kevin is a bit afraid of you so he let Aaron and I go anywhere we want, but of course we’ll have to attend Kevin’s party in Corralejo. It’s okay if you would not go.”

But three nights before Aaron and Nicky were supposed to depart for Corralejo, he had changed his mind and told them he didn’t want to be left here in Mary Hatford’s villa. The two did not question this and were happy enough to let him go with them.

The villa was like a snippet of heaven, if there really was one. It was huge and white and quiet, away from the buzzing _Playa_ but not that far into the island. It was seated in Maspalomas’ grandest neighborhood of villas which sheltered residents who were excessively rich expats.

Mary Hatford was an okay woman. She sometimes reminded him of his own therapist Bee, although Bee did not wear make-up and sun hats and sunglasses. To be fair, Mary Hatford lived in an island where it was always sunny, not in an office of drab-colored walls with a list of mentally-ill people to be attended to daily on her corkboard.

And then, there was her son, Neil.

On his first day there, he was met by a look too familiar that he had to look away and pretend he was admiring the interior of the house. But he knew he had failed to look in awe; he looked dead 99% of the time so he simply did his best not to look too much at Neil.

It was _that_ wary glare. He’d seen it in himself and it flicked his memory switch on and off and on and off. A horror movie was going off inside his head. The horror movie was basically…well, his late childhood and early adolescent years. Or maybe it was his entire life. He leaned towards the latter.

Often during his first few days there, he had seen Neil sit by the pool through the window in his room in the villa’s second landing. The kid was… well, weird. He’d seen him sit stone-still- so still he wondered if he should run downstairs and check if it wasn’t a mannequin he was seeing. But most times, he would just… draw in that stupid sketchbook of his.

Maybe it was boredom driving him insane that led him to go downstairs to talk to him on that fateful day. Maybe it had been the urge to just… go out. Years of therapy had taught him that it was okay to want to do things that did not make him feel like himself. But anyway, it had been a good decision.

Until one day he realized that _this_ would break him so badly.

Neil was so… horrifyingly _innocent_ he couldn’t help but think of what would happen if he taught him lessons about certain _things._ He couldn’t help it- he wanted to strip a bit of that naivety away in a way that would make both of them feel good.

He had tried to keep to himself, to reject Neil’s invites to the _Playa_ , but the more he resisted, the more he wanted to pin him against a wall and…

Well.

He just had to go with him. To the boardwalk to the beach to the little shops… Everywhere. Maybe spending time with him would pulverize the many dangerous thoughts that had been cooking in his mind. He had a handful of mantras: _Just get through this, Andrew. Don’t fall apart or you’ll lose. This is nothing. One-sided. Foolish._ But everytime Neil stared at him for too long without being aware of it, everytime Neil sat beside him in meals, everytime Neil snatched glances at him thinking he had not noticed, he believed in his mantras less and less.

Going to Corralejo was indubitably better than sitting around in his room debating if he should hang out with Neil or not.

Even if it meant having to share a room with Kevin Day, Matt Boyd, and his twin brother. Nicky had slept in the girl’s quarters, and he was _thankful_ for that.

And now he was back at the villa again. Neil had not seemed to be around as he, Nicky and Aaron were getting their stuff back to their respective rooms. Jimena and the maids had been the ones to welcome them back. Mary was probably with her friends downtown, as she usually was, but where was Neil?

 _Fuck_. Why should he care? In two weeks-ish they’d be on their way to meet Erik in Morocco. Then they’d go back to their apartment in Chicago and he could pretend that this summer was nothing but a pipe dream.

Speaking of pipe dream, after taking the longest nap of his life, as he was on his way out to the patio, he saw Neil by the counter eating what looked like kumquats.

Not to mention, he was shirtless.

But before he could even make sense of the mess that was the other boy’s chest and torso, Neil had already hurriedly slipped on his usual plain t-shirt in panic. Andrew heard him say something in Spanish. It could’ve been “Shit” but he really had no way to tell. He had learned German and not Spanish in high school. He made a mental note to take a Spanish class in the future.

Neil continued eating his kumquats, not looking him in the eye.

Andrew walked to the counter and sat on one of the stools. He cleared his throat. Neil still wouldn’t look at him.

“HI.”

“Hi, Andrew. Welcome back.”

“What are you feasting on?”

“Kumquats.”

“Can I have some?”

“I don’t know, _can you?_ ”

When he didn’t say anything, Neil was uncomfortable enough by his lack of response that he looked him in the eye this time. He pushed his bowl closer to Andrew. “I’m done, you can have it.” He grabbed his sketchbook and pencil lying in the countertop and turned to leave.

“Neil, if this is about-“

“Of course this is about you walking in on me without a shirt on and seeing how fucked up I am.”

Jesus, it was like he read his mind now.

But fuck that. He knew what he had to do in this moment. “Do you remember I promised you a longass story?”

That did it. Neil nodded yes and sat back down in his stool.

“If I told you my secrets would you give me something in return? Even if you’ll say no, I’ll still tell you. A promise is a promise.”

“You’ve already seen things, anyways. I better spill my truth than feel bothered for the next two weeks.”

Andrew agreed. “But I don’t feel comfortable talking here.”

“Don’t worry, the maids have gone home. I don’t think anyone is around.”

“What about Jimena, doesn’t she live here?”

“I think she’s sleeping in her quarters. I was alone for the past two hours, so I went, um, swimming.”

“Oh. But can we talk in somewhere more private?”

“Okay, then. If that’s what you want. _Vamonos_ , bandana boy. Make sure your legs are in place. ‘Cause we have to bike up to this place.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 50% of me says that this chapter isn't necessary at all. but uhhh if u read this i hope u enjoyed it lol i tried oki ??? 
> 
> :-)


	5. Show & Tell (part one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter: there are mentions of past sexual abuse & pedophilia  
> (the ratchet writing is due to the many exams that i have to study for lol,,, im open to criticism so pls throw me some)

Andrew took it all in while he still could- the dustgreen palm trees, the relentless island sun, the clean, cerulean blue of the sea beyond the beaches, the sand dunes, and the milk-white villas lining the little hills around them.

It was paradise and peril at the same time, knowing that he’ll be leaving in two weeks.

Neil had led him away from the tourist-studded beaches and into the greener part of Maspalomas. They laid their bikes against the bark of a strange tree on a strange hill overlooking the villas and other buildings that housed tourists.

It was beautiful. He hated that word; it was the reason why he was vulnerable to hungry, desperate hands when he was still a child.

A subtle tug at his sleeve brought him back to the surface. It was quick and quiet, but it made his skin crackle with an energy that he couldn’t name.

“Is this private enough for you?” Neil asked.

Andrew nodded. He didn’t know how to tell Neil what he owed him. Where should he even start? Neil had told him this was his “spot.” And it looked like a place straight out of a Renoir painting.

His hideous backstory seemed like something one can pull out of Bosch’s version of hell.

“Andrew?” The way Neil said his name- it was one of the things he was going to miss. “I have an idea that we have a lot in common in the surface. But the circumstances that led to those permanent reminders,” he shook his head, and few locks of curls tumbled into his eyes. Andrew wanted to brush those away. “They’re not the same.”

He knew what he was talking about- scars, and the stories behind them.

Andrew wanted to smile right then and there. Because it felt like such a fucking joke that they understood each other so well. If ever there was indeed a God, as his friend Renee believed, then He had shoved him towards a treasure chest, and in it was a mirror. But that God was going to take him away without the chest nor the mirror. And he really really really wanted to take home, or be left alone with both.

He had not even left yet but he was already partially heartbroken.

He took his bandana off unceremoniously, and his hair fell into his eyes. He held his hair up so Neil could see. Their faces weren’t supposed to be this close. But he only hoped Neil was oblivious.

“Are those cigarette burns?”

“Yeah. But unlike this one,” he tapped the pad of his thumb against a cigar burn scar in Neil’s cheek. “There’s a multiple of them. Three every…” he closed his eyes for a brief moment then opened them again. “Three every session.”

“Session?”

“Hold this for a while,” he tossed his bandana to Neil, which the latter caught with a stunned expression. “I hate holding it, and my jersey shorts don’t have pockets, so you might as well do that for me?”

Neil nodded.

Andrew sat down on a huge root and sat back against the rough bark of the tree. Neil remained standing. Andrew was too lazy to look up to what he was still doing, probably still gawking at the bandana in his hands.

“It is just a piece of cloth.”

“It just seems like an extension of you, you know?”

Andrew scoffed. “Neil, since when are you dramatic?”

Neil sat beside him and shrugged.

“So, as I was saying, I got three of these burns every _session_. That’s what the woman who birthed me used to call it. She was 18 when she had me and Aaron, and my father was already out of the country before she could even break the news that she was pregnant.

“She was shit at solo-parenting. Didn’t even have a stable job. We had to live in a single-bedroom apartment. Sometimes she would lock us up in that place for so long it seemed like weeks, although it was probably just a day or two.”

“Where would she go?” Neil asked.

“I did not know, and didn’t care. But when she would come back, at least she’d bring food with her. That was basically our lives until we turned seven. She told us she was tired of raising us by herself when she didn’t want us, so we should at least contribute. Aaron and I didn’t have any idea what she meant until she brought us to desperate people’s houses. We were so… frail and underweight that she would easily drag us into people’s laps to be… _touched_ inappropriately.” He told Neil about Aaron’s sickliness. He was unfortunate to be the healthier twin, because that meant that he had to attend to _sessions_. Especially when Aaron had to be admitted to the hospital a few times. “I could’ve ran away. I could’ve left Aaron. But I didn’t. I was so young and helpless that I asked those… people who paid my mom so they could have sessions with me to double their pay. Some of them did. One of them refused, and got so infuriated by such a request that he slapped my face and made me kneel and open my mouth.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, Neil.”

“You were seven.”

Andrew nodded, refusing to look him in the eye.

They were quiet for a while.

“These sessions weren’t the reason why I have scars. But we’ll get to that. As I’ve said earlier, Aaron was the less healthy of the two of us. But miraculously, as we got older, he got sick less and less. I was jealous of him, though. Our mother stopped making him go to houses for sessions. He was this obedient little boy who aced his tests and did shit like science fairs. I didn’t like excelling. I could have done that, but I hated Mom’s growing favoritism and purposely scored zero in my tests just to make her mad. I didn’t know why I did that, Neil. I was sick of my life and I felt so stuck that I didn’t even try to approach anyone. I guess I became a problem child. My teachers hated my guts and my classmates feared me.

“I was nine when our mother brought me to this guy’s place. His name was Drake, and he paid my mother fifty bucks for a fuck. Everytime he… everytime he did it with me, he would whisper sick things to my ears. Said I looked like a baby Kurt Cobain.”

He couldn’t… wouldn’t look at Neil. He didn’t want to see pity on that face of his.

“Kurt Cobain had this self-inflicted cigarette burn on his forehead, you know? But Drake was sick, so he gave me three burns that first session. And then that just kind of became his thing. Three every session. Mom made me stop going to school so people wouldn’t notice my burns. Because she didn’t like me, she tolerated Drake. Aaron and I have grown so apart by that time that I didn’t mind telling him. Like I said, it didn’t matter anymore if I got help or not. I just felt so stuck that I was convinced it was going to be my life until I die.” Andrew wanted to snatch his bandana back from Neil’s hands, but he fought the urge. He didn’t like being without it in the open. He took a breath and reminded himself that they were alone.

“What changed?” Neil’s voice was nowhere near pitying, and instinctively Andrew looked at him. He couldn’t quite read his expression.

“Aaron broke into Drake’s house one night. We were in the shower, and my hands were tied back. Aaron stabbed Drake with a knife. He didn’t kill him immediately, but Drake did die in the hospital.”

 _Almost done, Andrew_. He told Neil the rest of it: he and Aaron were sent to a rehabilitation center for kids and teens. Their mother was sent to jail, and died there because of cardiac arrest. He couldn’t care less about her, but Aaron had the heart to cry the night they learned about her death.

“And then when we were fourteen, we got released from the rehab center. We had nowhere to go except Nicky’s. His parents weren’t happy to have us, but Nicky was overjoyed. Somehow he convinced them to let us stay until we finished high school.”

Those four years under Luther’s roof were not easy. But it was that or be thrown around the foster system like a ping pong ball.

He heard Neil take a breath. “Why did Aaron break into Drake’s that night?”

“He said he followed Mom and I. I owe him my life, Neil. Not that I love my life. But still…”

“Yeah, I get it. I’m glad he did that for you. I’m glad you’re alive.”

Just four words. Strung together like thin threads into a rope. Spoken like it meant something, but it hurt to believe that. And believe that, he did.

He looked at Neil through the hair falling around his eyes. He sure needed that bandana back. But instead of asking for the piece of cloth, he simply told Neil, “It’s your turn now.”

He didn’t know what the boy had in store for him. But he knew that whatever it was, he would not flinch, ever.

_Renoir or Bosch, it doesn’t matter, Neil._


	6. Show & Tell (pt 2) ft. Pineapples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> four men drink pineapple smoothies what happens nxt will Shock u  
> (lol not really)
> 
> PS the 1st part is kinda dark bcos domestic abuse is mentioned

Neil could not believe that he really was able to tell Andrew things that he had kept to himself for so long now. He had told him about his abusive father, how he and Mary tried to get away and failed successively, and how fortunate they were to win the case that sent his father’s power swirling down the drain.

He had shown Andrew his scars, too. He had hesitated at first, but as he had lifted his shirt over his head, Andrew’s expressionless face had not changed.

“I got this one from climbing over the gate. My mom wasn’t with me, she was asleep in her room, but I was not planning to leave her. I was trying to get help. That was the first time I’d seen him hit her. And before I knew it, I was over the gate. But one of my father’s guards saw me.”

He had run a finger over the hideous imprint. He thought he was going to die that day. But he didn’t, and he wasn’t happy about it. “I never understood why he had to iron my skin, because such thing seemed so… inhumane to me. Then, he told me that I was like the most wrinkled pair of pants he owned, so if he had to keep me, he at least had to fix me.”

It had felt so surreal- talking about his past to this person who was nobody to him 2 weeks before, that person’s bandana coiled around his wrist, and the sunlight filtering through the leaves of _his_ tree making everything golden.

His nosebleed had put a stopper to the soft, peaceful momentum of that moment.

“This happens all the time,” he had reassured Andrew while holding up his balled up shirt to his nose.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Your mom’s not around, si? I don’t wanna do this if she is,” Nicky said, holding a cleaver suspended in the air. Neil nodded. Nicky giggled then cut the pineapple into two like he was axing a log. “This is how my Da used to it for me, back when he still had love for me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. My dad hates me now. Ever since he knew I liked boys.” He sliced the pineapple into tidbits. “So, now,” he sang, putting the tidbits into the blender, “I do it myself!”

Neil focused on the whir of the blender. It’d been a few days since he and Andrew had exchanged  truths on his favorite place in Maspalomas. And then, they had barely hung out after that. He couldn’t understand why, but he guessed it was the heaviness of those truths that made things weird. But of the two of them, Andrew was the one who stopped going to the poolside after lunch, the one who refused to go to town with him.

It had made him mad. And sad.

Speaking of Andrew, the blonde marched into the kitchen and stood beside him, watching Nicky make pineapple smoothies.

“Looks disgusting,” Andrew commented.

“But you’d drink a whole tub of this stuff, am I right?”

“On a day where I’m desperate, yes.” He gently kicked Neil’s knee with his, gesturing to their drinks. Neil grabbed a glass and Andrew, two- one for him and the other for Aaron. They walked to the pool in silence.

Neil didn’t participate much in the afternoon conversation. Nicky and Aaron talked the most, and occasionally Andrew would make a snide comment about something.

 “Oh, sweet Lord, if only Erik was here.” When Aaron made a face, Nicky flicked water at him. “What? Your girl can get some of this, too!” He shook his half-empty glass at his face. “You going out tonight, eh?”

“She insisted.”

“I’m proud of you Aaron, despite your heterosexuality, I am so proud of you.” Then, Nicky looked to Andrew knowingly.

“Don’t give me that look, Hemmick.”

Neil hadn’t followed the conversation much, not when he was too distracted. Andrew was seated casually in a beach chair, the type you can put your feet up. Well, Neil was seated on the end of it. Andrew’s feet were basically in contact with his thigh and his ass.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Does Erik really love pineapples? You guys can bring him some if you want, there’s a lot in the fridge.” They were on their way to their respective rooms after Nicky and Aaron left for town. Neil didn’t have a particular topic in mind, but he wanted to say something.

Andrew faced him, looking like he was about to laugh. He’d seen that look rarely, but he’d seen it nonetheless- when his brother or his cousin said something absurd or when Jimena asked him if he wanted sugar in his coffee.

“What?” Neil asked, defeated. Did he say something absurd?

“Yes, Neil. Erik loves pineapples. Okay, we sure will.” He turned towards his room.

“Just because my mother and the maids infantilize me a lot doesn’t mean I’m that of a baby, you know.”

Andrew sighed and turned to face him again. “There’s this belief that your cum will taste better if you drink pineapple juice, or something that has pineapple in it.”

Neil could feel his face turn beet-red. “Oh.”

“Hey, don’t get so worked up about it.”

“I’m not.”

Jimena’s singing voice echoed from downstairs. Neil ran up to Andrew asking him to let him in his room.

“Why?”

“Jimena’s woken up from her nap. She had asked me yesterday if I could go grocery-shopping with her this afternoon. I never said yes because grocery-shopping with her takes hours. But you know Jimena, she could scare you into submission. But she can’t do that if she can’t find me.”

Andrew quirked an eyebrow. “So you’ll hide in my room instead of yours?”

“Yes. She doesn’t like bothering guests. She’ll look in my room but will ignore yours.”

Inside Andrew’s room, they listened for signs of Jimena. When she had called Neil’s name and nobody responded, Neil heard her mutter something about forgetfulness and laziness, then she continued to hum. The sound drifted towards downstairs. She was off to the food shop by herself, then.

He and Andrew were sitting on his bed, and Neil felt like he was about to cry. Because he wanted to do _something-_ anything- with him, but he did not know how. Andrew shifted like he wanted to do something, too.

 _Fuck it_. _Do something or die not knowing what it feels like to kiss you._ Neil leaned in and hesitated. But Andrew pulled him in and their lips clumsily landed on each other.

It made Neil wonder why they had not done this way back when they still had so many days. The kiss felt like answers, filling his void like grains of sand to the bottom half of an hourglass. It was summer heat and tongue and teeth; it was hesitation overweighed by desire. Their mouths tasted like pineapples, and their faces were pressed against each other, like they had no need for space, for boundaries. Andrew ran his fingers through Neil’s stubborn curls, and it made his entire body tingle.

When they pulled away from each other to catch their breaths, Andrew spoke in a raspy voice, “I should’ve asked you first.”

“Hmm?” Neil replied, still in a daze.

“Consent is important.”

“Okay. I would’ve said yes anyway. I was the one who initiated it, anyway.”

“Neil.”

“Okay, okay. Lesson learned. But know that I don’t have any boundaries for you, Andrew.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Yes, you do, Neil.”

Neil considered this for a while, then finally understood. No matter how much he wanted him, they still had to have boundaries. Besides, with Andrew’s past, boundaries needed to be recognized.

“Andrew?”

“Yes?”

“I want to do that again.”

Andrew pulled him for another kiss. This time, the blonde pulled him to his lap, so Neil was straddling his hips. Neil’s mouth wandered down his jaw, then his neck, and he smiled to himself when Andrew pulled him back to his lips. “Neck fetish?”

“Maybe I only have a fetish for one neck and that’s yours.”

Andrew smacked his arm gently. “That’s gross.”

Neil grinned despite knowing that Andrew would never smile along with him. It didn’t matter. He could read the blonde’s eyes and knew that he was enjoying whatever this was, too.

“AndrewAndrewAndrewAndrew.”

“What now?”

“Is it true? The pineapple thing?”

Now it was Andrew’s turn to blush. “I’ve never tried before.”

They knew they both wanted to know.

The sun was roaring through the open window, taunting them to pull down the blinds, but none of them cared enough to do that. Neil sat there with his legs parted and his hand on Andrew’s hair. Andrew’s hands mapped his hips and his thighs, doing him slow at first. It seemed like a lucid dream- too good to be true. But this was real. It felt so good that a few moans escaped his mouth.

“So, is it true?”

They lay in Andrew’s bed, side by side, thinking about feelings and shit. But _not_ talking about those feelings and shit.

He watched Andrew bite his lower lip; he guessed the blonde was thinking about bigger things than pineapple smoothies. The question that Neil had asked had drifted out the window… and a heavier one, though unsaid, sat on both of their chests. _What happens when all of this ends?_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i based the pineapple thing on that one aubrey plaza movie where she's like a lifeguard or smth i forgot the title but it was a funny film lmao 9/10 would rec
> 
> thanks for reading i hope u enjoyed this one :-)

**Author's Note:**

> im not american (and english isnt my first language) so excuse my grammatical & other errors. i've also never been to gran canaria or to any place mentioned in this fic lol. 
> 
> and lastly, as if u still cant tell, this is my first fic ever !! so im so sorry if it's kinda boring but if u read this one, thenks a lot, m8!
> 
> <3


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